To support its growing US ridership, Waymo will expand its American manufacturing operation with a new autonomous vehicle factory in Metro Phoenix, in partnership with Magna. “Scaling Waymo One and meeting the increasing demand of our riders requires a growing fleet of vehicles integrated with our generalizable Waymo Driver,” the company stated in a blog on its website.
The new Waymo Driver integration plant will build thousands of Jaguar I-PACEs equipped with the company’s fully autonomous technology, which it designs and assembles in the US. At 239,000ft2, the facility represents a multi-million dollar investment that will create hundreds of jobs in Mesa, Arizona, as well as support Waymo’s future growth plans.
Currently, Waymo One provides more than 250,000 paid trips each week across Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin, with fully autonomous ride-hailing in Atlanta, Miami, and Washington, D.C. set to begin in 2026.
“The new Waymo and Magna manufacturing facility in Mesa is the latest example of Arizona being the new home for technology to innovate and grow,” said Arizona Governor, Katie Hobbs. “I’m proud to see autonomous vehicles on our streets every day, helping get people where they need to be safely. The new manufacturing facility will enhance this presence, and the local jobs it’s creating will help Arizona’s tech economy continue to rise on the world stage.”
Rapid growth sees Zeekr RT join Waymo’s fleet
Waymo One has grown substantially in the last couple of years. The company has incrementally grown its commercial fleet as it welcomed more riders, with over 1,500 vehicles now stationed across San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Austin. Earlier this year, it received its final delivery from Jaguar, and through next year, it will build over 2,000 more fully autonomous I-PACE vehicles to add to its fleet.
“The Waymo Driver integration plant in Mesa is the epicenter of our future growth plans,” said Ryan McNamara, VP of operations, Waymo. “With our partners at Magna, we’ve opened a manufacturing site that enables the cost efficiency, flexibility, and capacity to scale our fleet to new heights.”
The facility’s flexible design will enable Waymo to integrate its sixth-generation Waymo Driver on new vehicle platforms, beginning this year with the Zeekr RT. With the need to build multiple platforms simultaneously and at higher volumes, the plant will also introduce an automated assembly line and other efficiencies over time, according to the company’s blog post. When the facility is operating at full capacity, it will be capable of building tens of thousands of fully autonomous Waymo vehicles per year.
End-of-line vehicle validation
After the Driver is installed, the system needs to be validated and commissioned before carrying riders. With this new facility, Waymo says it has recently implemented new processes and efficiencies at the end of line that significantly reduce the time and cost required to enable a vehicle to carry riders.
This new strategic capability allows vehicles assigned to its Phoenix fleet to drive themselves out of the facility and directly into service. In fact, these vehicles can pick up their first public passengers less than 30 minutes after leaving the factory, according to the company. For vehicles intended for other cities, they can be deployed into public service in a matter of hours after being shipped to their local depot.
Meanwhile, you can see a fascinating video of Waymo’s San Francisco fleet depot, below, in a video first posted by Mario Herger, PhD – showing some Zeekr vehicles in ‘camouflage’.